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Sam J.

Sam J.

Joined on 01/08/02

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 3
Most Favorable Review

Solid mid-range card for 2008

ECS GeForce 9600 GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N9600GT-512MX-P
ECS GeForce 9600 GT 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N9600GT-512MX-P

Pros: Accelero Passive cooling does an excellent job and is 100% silent. This card is a great value in mid-range cards. It's not the fastest thing out there, but it's fairly cheap, doesn't produce too much heat, and can play modern games at 1920x1200. I have played a few hours of Bioshock on this card and my GPU temp only reached 56^C in a case with poor airflow.

Cons: The huge passive heatsink on this card is too large to fit in some PC cases. It fit in my Lian-Li, but not in my girlfriends Compaq Presario OEM computer. The heatsink would also prevent an SLI bridge from being used, although the soft copper could probably be easily modified.

Overall Review: About equal performance to 8800 series cards. However, one will still perform 8600GTs in SLI. SLI (and Crossfire) only make sense for those willing to buy two high end cards while they are still cutting edge.

Most Critical Review

Looks Good, Works Bad

Logitech V470 Blue 3 Buttons Tilt Wheel Cordless Laser Notebook Mouse for Bluetooth
Logitech V470 Blue 3 Buttons Tilt Wheel Cordless Laser Notebook Mouse for Bluetooth

Pros: Looks Good, Compact

Cons: Input Lag makes it unusable

Overall Review: I bought this to use with a HTPC which is also used for gaming. The input lag on this mouse even when sitting a few feet from the dongle made it frustrating to use in Windows, and unusable in games. I would recommend against his mouse even for basic internet use. If other BT mice are this bad, I'm going back to regular RF - which has been adequate for games like WoW at least.

"Best" low power PCIe GPU

MSI GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N9500GT MD512Z
MSI GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 SLI Support Graphics Card N9500GT MD512Z

Pros: Passive cooling is completely silent. This card does not use a lot of power or generate much heat. At idle the clock speed is reduced to 200mhz for improved power savings. HDCP compliant HDMI output on-board. This is the fastest GPU currently available which does not require an external PCIe connector, making it a great choice for those with OEM PCs or older power supplies.

Cons: 9600GT has much better performance than this card.

Overall Review: This card uses GDDR2, while some other 9500GT cards are clocked higher and use GDD3. However, if I wanted better performance, I'd probably pony up for the 9600GT.